There have been some terrifying monsters on TV shows, and it is clear that two of the scariest are Vecna from Stranger Things and Pennywise from It: Welcome to Derry. These two monsters dominate almost every discussion of scary monsters from TV shows, but there are so many other strange, quiet, and often terrifying monsters on TV shows across multiple decades. While both of those monsters deserve to be in the conversations, and maybe they should top the lists, there are great monsters who have lived in the audience’s homes for weeks at a time, and they remain ingrained in people’s nightmares sometimes years later.
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Here is a look at the scariest TV show monsters when Vecna and Pennywise are removed from the conversation.
7) Clickers (The Last of Us)
While video game adaptations have rarely been great in movies, the genre has seen great success on television. One of the best recent shows based on a video game is The Last of Us, which airs on HBO. This series has an infection that causes humans to turn into grotesque monsters, and while the real monsters are still humans, the monsters on the show are terrifying in both appearance and actions.
The main monsters appearing in the series are Clickers, which are humans who have been infected with the Cordyceps brain infection for so long that the fungus has grown outward from their skulls. The monsters are blind, so they use the clicking sounds to navigate and hunt, which also provides them with their name. They look just like they did in the games, and they are unstoppable, where any noise could result in instant death.
6) Tooth Child (Channel Zero)
Channel Zero is an underrated anthology horror series that more people need to see. The SYFY series adapted several terrifying ideas into its stories, and one of these was the Kris Straub creepypasta about the Tooth Child. This was a first-season episode in 2016 with a title named after the creature. The creature was a little person covered in teeth, and the design is pure nightmare fuel.
The Tooth Child makes its first surveillance footage appearance in “I’ll Hold Your Hand,” where the creature visits Katie’s room after a night of children attacking each other in the town. By the time the finale arrived, the Tooth Child was revealed to be the manifestation of Mike’s dead twin brother, Eddie, summoned by a former teacher who was harvesting children’s teeth so Eddie could return to physical form. Every time the creature moves, it clicks thanks to its teeth, and it is as terrifying as it sounds.
5) Shtriga (Supernatural)
The Shtriga is a monster based on an Albanian myth that dates back to Ancient Rome, and they share a lot in common with witches. However, unlike witches, these monsters feed on a person’s life force. Once a person loses this, their immune system starts to weaken, and Shtriga continues to feed on them. The scariest part is that they can shapeshift into regular humans during the day to hunt their prey, but at night, they revert to their form of a hag.
What makes them even scarier on Supernatural is that the Shtriga in the show feeds off children’s life forces, because kids can give them sustenance for much longer. Sam Winchester also said that the Shtriga were nearly unbeatable since they were invulnerable to all weapons devised by God and Man. Luckily, the brothers learned that they could kill one with consecrated iron if the Shtriga is currently in the act of feeding.
4) The Flukeman (The X-Files)
There were some terrifying creatures on The X-Files, but the scariest has to be the Flukeman. This monster appeared in the Season 2 episode, “The Host,” a humanoid parasite born from radioactive waste dumped by a decommissioned Russian freighter linked to the Chernobyl disaster. He now lives in the New Jersey sewer system, and he reproduces by latching onto victims and implanting larvae.
This led to one of the show’s most disgusting scenes, when Mulder watches a worm-like creature wriggle out of a man’s body. The creature was performed by Darin Morgan, wearing a full-body prosthetic suit with a face that was pure nightmare fuel. It is scary for both its grotesque appearance and the real-world fear of what could live under the city that could come up through the plumbing when people are at their most vulnerable.
3) The Gentlemen (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Sometimes scary monsters don’t look terrifying, but are so unsettling that they etch their way into someone’s imagination and won’t let go. The Gentlemen define this description, and they appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4’s “Hush.” This is widely considered one of the best Buffy episodes in history, with an almost silent film feel since the Gentlemen take away everyone’s voices, and no one can speak as the demons go through town, seeking to carve out seven still-beating human hearts to satisfy their quota.
The Gentlemen are tall, gaunt, bald demons wearing dark suits, with permanent rictus grins of metallic teeth. They hover several inches above the ground rather than walk, escorted by straitjacketed Footmen. The episode earned two Emmy nominations, and even though they never appeared again, The Gentlemen remain among the fan-favorite monsters to ever appear on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2) White Walkers (Game of Thrones)
The White Walkers were the looming evil on Game of Thrones, debuting in the very first episode of the fantasy series. They slaughtered a Night’s Watch ranging party beyond the Wall. The Night King leads this army, and he debuted visually in the Season 4 episode, “Oathkeeper,” when he touches one of Craster’s infant sons and transforms the baby into a new White Walker. While the Night King is the leader, it is the entire army of White Walkers that is scary to behold.
In the Season 5 episode, “Hardhome,” Jon Snow kills a Walker with the Valyrian steel sword Longclaw, and the Night King silently raises the slaughtered wildlings as a fresh army of wights from across the water. It takes Arya Stark killing the Night King to finally stop the threat. They rarely speak, and they reframe the entire political drama as a terrifying horror story. While people argue about a throne, the real threat is an extinction-level evil army that doesn’t care who is in charge.
1) Weeping Angels (Doctor Who)
Doctor Who remains the longest-running sci-fi series of all time, and it has what might be the scariest monsters in television history. Steven Moffat created the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who Series 3’s “Blink.” This was an episode in which the Doctor barely appeared and instead starred Carey Mulligan as Sally Sparrow, a young woman who had to figure out how to survive these seemingly unstoppable killing machines.
They are described as “quantum-locked” predators, and as long as a living being looks at them, they are frozen in stone. The second they are unobserved, they come to life and move at lethal speed to kill their targets. They touch a person and send them back in time and consume the energy that person would have had if they lived in the present. They returned multiple times and were always the scariest monsters in the series. “Blink” has often been called the best Doctor Who episode of all time.
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